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India saw the birth of 24 unicorns in 2022, becoming the third country to house a hundred unicorns. One out of 13 unicorns globally was born in India, states a report by Orios Venture Partners, a venture capital fund.

Commenting on The Indian Unicorns and Exits Tech Report 2022, Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners, said India remains a global hotspot in technology company value creation with 22 tech-focused unicorns last year.

“This speaks for the deep adoption of tech across the country. The next phase of the Indian technology story will be graduating these unicorns to exits via IPOs and the coming years should see a flurry of activity in that direction,” he said.

The year also saw 229 acquisitions and 4 IPOs.

Despite the funding winter, the technology ecosystem in India saw abundant activity in 2022. SaaS dethroned fintech to become the sector with the largest number of unicorns. 

The report also highlights the number of years it took on an average for a company to turn a unicorn. In 2022, it took an average of 8.4 years to turn a unicorn, with 42 companies turning unicorns in less than five years.

Bengaluru remained the largest unicorn hub in India and also emerged as the seventh largest unicorn hub in the world.

Startups raised $25 billion in 2022, or almost 2.2x as much as they did in 2020. However, in 2022, startups also witnessed a 30% decline in funding compared to 2021. The number of startup IPOs also declined to 4 in 2022, compared to 11 in 2021.

Key findings of the report

• SaaS had the largest number of unicorns in 2022 (6), followed by fintech (4) and logistics (3).
• There were 229 acquisitions in 2022 compared to 250 in 2021. MX Taka Tak acquired by Moj was the largest deal, followed by Blinkit’s acquisition by Zomato.
• 80% of Indian unicorns are founded by engineers. As many as 75% of the unicorns are founded by first-time founders.
• Swiggy was added to the decacorn list in 2022, making the count 5 so far.
• 5ire was the fastest company to turn a unicorn in 2022, reaching the status in a mere 11 months. Mobio was the slowest unicorn last year, taking 22 years to achieve the status.